05-12-2006, 05:53 AM | #1 | |
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How to die from AIDS
http://harpers.org/OutOfControl.html
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****ing sick ****s
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05-12-2006, 08:26 AM | #2 |
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Too tragic?
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05-12-2006, 08:27 AM | #3 |
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That´s a sad story.
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05-12-2006, 08:32 AM | #4 | |
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This is from the CDC.
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05-12-2006, 08:35 AM | #5 |
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He sounds credible. If you notice, they don't even know if she actually had AIDS or not.
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05-12-2006, 08:38 AM | #6 |
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Yes but an HIV/AIDS specialist wouldn't take one positive test as a definitive HIV diagnosis. I would think he would retest her to make sure. That's just my take on it.
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05-12-2006, 08:44 AM | #7 |
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But the point is they used her to test a drug. Now they don't know if she actually had AIDS because the diagnostic can hardly be trusted, what with what ensued with the liver complications. That whole story of AIDS overtaking her body so quickly didn't convince me or the journalist, apparently.
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05-12-2006, 09:14 AM | #8 |
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I'm sorry, I'm with Melanie. I don't believe for a second that a an HIV-specialist wouldn't have retested her or known about this apparent ability of pregnancy to return false positive results.
If the whole thing is true, then yes it is very sad and I'd wish American healthcare to just blow up. But either there's a lot of incompetence going on or these guys are just incredibly sick. I'm not sure I believe the article, though. |
05-12-2006, 09:36 AM | #9 |
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I'm more inclined to believing this kind of things can be bought into. Doctor's hearts aren't bigger than their pockets. http://harpers.org/HarpersMission.html I don't find it that hard to believe this one business, the one where doing this kind of thing is so easy and part of the game, is innocent of stuff like this.
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05-12-2006, 10:48 AM | #10 |
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To be honest, when I read the article, all I could think was, "This sounds like the sort of thing you'd read in the plot for a bestseller novel from Robin Cook."
I have to admit I also find it hard to believe that there was no follow-up HIV test done... or that they'd have to fake a positive result to get test subjects when last I knew there's no shortage of people in the US who actually *do* have HIV/AIDS. Peace & Luv, Liz
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05-12-2006, 11:31 AM | #11 | |
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05-12-2006, 11:44 AM | #12 | |
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And, why hate doctors? There's bad apples in every bunch, but most doctors are people who worked hard for many years to learn how to heal people. My mom used to be a nurse's aid... I spent most of my childhood more than passingly familiar with hospital environments. I'm not going to say there ain't a lot of crap coming from the FDA's direction (Thalidomide, anyone? Or fen-phen?)... but mass conspiracies where doctors fake test results to use dangerous drugs on people who aren't sick? Like I said, it sounds like a pulp medical thriller. Peace & Luv, Liz
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05-12-2006, 06:31 PM | #13 | |
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The Tuskegee Syphilis study was run for 40 years, starting in 1932, and was only terminated because of bad press. Thanks to the Tuskegee Study and the Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies the U.S. now has IRBs (Institutional Review Boards, also called Research Ethics Boards in Canada), who must follow FDA regulations when monitoring clinical trials of FDA regulated products (i.e, drugs), but IRBs are not closely monitored by the FDA. IRBs are often funded by pharmaceutical companies, the same pharmaceutical companies running the clinical trials of new drugs. If you wanted to you could found your own IRB to monitor your own clinical trial. No wonder ethical breaches happen. (WIRB is the most notorious and the largest of review boards if you're curious and want to read more about IRBs.) Ever wonder how in the world would a drug like Vioxx get approved? Merck's own studies showed that it increased the risk of heart attack fivefold. Merck did manipulate the data, but the FDA sat by and twiddled its thumbs while people were dying. The FDA is partially funded by drug companies now, something a lot of people aren't aware of. When AIDS activists were pushing for AIDS drugs to be pushed through the approval process more quickly it opened the door for the FDA to start charging drug companies fees to get their drugs approved quickly. The pharmaceutical industry is incredibly profitable. They are ruthless businesses, they do not care about curing disease, their primary directive is to get blockbuster drugs approved and to make obscene amounts of money. Prilosec topped $6 billion in profits a year. That BLOWS MY MIND. I'm going to stop now before I get carried away and bore you all. I have a huge interest in the FDA, clinical trials, REBs/IRBs and especially Big Pharma. Many people do not understand just how underhanded and ethically questionable Big Pharma is. They sell the disease, then the drug. Drug company reps give money and gifts to pharmacists and physicians (who are referred to as "script writers" because to Big Pharma that's all doctors are). Drug companies will even ghostwrite articles about their star drugs and pay a doctor to sign the article to give it more credibility. Medical schools receive huge amounts of money from drug companies, drug companies start wooing doctors before they've even gotten their MDs. It all really gives me a bad feeling. |
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05-14-2006, 03:52 PM | #14 |
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The pharmaceutical industrial complex is no better than the military- or prison industrial complex, but this is just a freak accident, not some twisted act of malice (though those trials do reak of incompetence and cash politics, I mean, a maximum bearable toxicity test on pregnant women? Bloody hell). It's a sad series of events leading to an unnecessary death
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05-14-2006, 05:37 PM | #15 |
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I think the point is liver failure death from AIDS drugs is very common, that AIDS drugs aren't that miraculous: they kill you.
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05-14-2006, 06:26 PM | #16 | |
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I have known of people with AIDS to die of every opportunistic infection you can imagine, but I have never heard of a single one dying of liver failure caused by their medication except for the person in the article you quoted. She was in a trial to determine maximum allowable toxicity levels, and clearly the level to which she was subjected was too high. She displayed textbook symptoms of liver disease/failure, and her doctor should have taken her off the trial immediately upon seeing these. Was her doctor irresponsible? If the article is a complete and accurate account...yes. Was her death the fault of the drugs she was given? No, it was the fault of the amounts of the drugs she was given, and her doctor's inattention to her symptoms and complaints. Penicillin is a "wonder drug" and can cure a vast array of infections, but to a person who is allergic to penicillin it is a deadly poison. This doesn't mean penicillin shouldn't be given to the great percentage of people who can tolerate it, and who will benefit from it.
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05-14-2006, 07:20 PM | #17 | |
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You exhibited ignorance with that statement. Many antiretroviral drugs and other drugs related to combatting AIDS are not much different from other kinds of medicines to treat various kinds of illnesses - overdosing on them or allergic reactions to them or other factors can contribute to nasty reactions or even death from people taking them. They're not that different, really, from medicines like Vioxx or Ambien. There can be weird side effects, but that's the nature of many drugs. You have to take into account many logistical details before deciding whether to suggest this or that killed the person.
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05-14-2006, 08:09 PM | #18 | |
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http://www.healtoronto.com/justice_liver.html
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05-14-2006, 08:12 PM | #19 |
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Catbert, may I ask..........why are you so interested in this?
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05-15-2006, 03:40 AM | #20 |
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I have no idea myself. I don't have AIDS, if that's the implied question.
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